The death of elderly Mr Nathaniel Reed, was not completely unexpected. He was like an ancient champion oak, old and beautifully weathered. But the news of his death was shocking, bringing tears and heartbreak to the many touched by his long branches, and the seeds he spread along the way.

I can never “not remember” Mr Reed. He was always, since my earliest childhood, a figment of my greater imagination and consciousness, an example of what it meant to have a meaningful life and purpose, to walk and make change in the tainted world of politics, to choose the greater-good over greed, to inspire.

During my Sewall’s Point mayorship in 2011, I first became active in the environmental community for which Martin County is known. Mr Reed planted the seeds, writing me a note here and there, on his quality stationary; in 2016, he gave the maximum amount to my campaign when I ran for county commissioner, District 1, and in his final years, Mr Reed wrote a Letter to the Editor of the Stuart News of which he sent me a copy.

At that time my student proposed Constitution Revision Commission proposal “A Right to a Clean Environment” was getting clobbered by Affiliated Industries, the Florida Chamber, The Florida Agriculture Coalition, and other powers who had assembled a legal team, including a former Florida Chief Justice to squash this threatening idea.

I was so worn down, and had been working so hard. Mr Reed’s letter and support reinvigorated me and the students. And although the proposal did not make the vote, it made smarter people than me on the CRC and throughout the state think, about how our paradise of Florida has become so polluted, and what we can do for change.

Let’s once again read Mr Reed’s words, at the trunk of the fallen champion oak remembering that we are his acorns, or even his resurrection fern…

Thank you Mr Reed. I am forever grateful. We will work towards your legacy.

Thank you for the Dec. 1 editorial supporting the right to a clean environment!

The “usual suspects” are opposing the constitutional amendment proposed by Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch, which would receive strong support from the vast majority of Florida voters, just as they quietly opposed Amendment 1.

The fact that the Department of Environmental Protection and the Everglades Foundation have at last identified every polluter in the vast Okeechobee headwaters is an astonishing feat. The sheer number of polluters is mind-boggling.

The failure to enforce the possibly unenforceable standard (best management practices) shines through the research as testament to the carelessness of our state governmental agencies about enforcing strict water quality standards within the watershed.

There is not a lake, river nor estuary in Florida that is not adversely impacted by agricultural pollution.

As one of the authors of the 1973 Clean Water Act, I attempted late in the process to include agricultural pollution in the bill, but the major congressional supporters of the pending bill felt that by adding controls on agricultural pollution the bill would fail.

Now, 54 years later, fertilizer and dairy wastes are the main contributors to the pollution of the waters of our nation. Algal blooms are all too common even on the Great Lakes.

The “usual suspects” may defeat Thurlow-Lippisch’s brave effort, but you are right: The issues won’t go away!

Lefty Durando’s column clearly states the issues involved in the decades-long struggle to protect the Arctic National Wild Life Refuge. Having been there several times as assistant secretary, I have joined a group of well-known environmentalists, Republicans and Democrats urging defeat of the proposal to open the critical habitat of the coast zone to exploratory drilling. I suspect it is a lost cause, but one worth the fight to preserve the “Serengeti of the North”!